When Alex Lomax pulled his No. 2 jersey over his head before Memphis’ NIT championship game, it was a gesture of hope.
Lomax hadn’t played a second of competition basketball since he sprained his ankle Feb. 27 in what he calls a “freak accident.” The Tigers had played their past eight games without him, six of them wins, and were one win from clinching a title.
So he didn’t really think he would play on Sunday in Frisco, Texas. He didn’t even know if he was physically capable. But something stirred inside him and spurred the junior captain to put on his uniform.
“Me and (walk-on Conor Glennon) actually been around each other these past couple trips and have been talking a lot, and I’d kind of been joking with him, ‘Who’s gonna play more minutes?’ ” Lomax said. “I kind of convinced myself I wanted to dress out with the team and show them some love and show the city some love, but I never really expected it to happen.”
Lomax watched from the sideline as Memphis raced to a 13-point lead against Mississippi State, relinquished it at halftime and fought to regain control in the second half. With 45 seconds remaining in the game and Memphis up 77-60, coach Penny Hardaway called Lomax’s number.
As Lomax walked onto the court, he raised his right hand to the ceiling, overcome with emotion.
“Just being out there, it just meant the world to me because I just wish I could’ve been out there helping the guys out earlier in the season,” he said, “because I feel deep down in my heart if the injury never happened, we wouldn’t be in the NIT tournament, we’d be in the NCAA Tournament.”
Memphis closed the season with 11 wins in its last 13 games, the only losses coming to now-Elite Eight team Houston. Lomax had a front-row seat to it all, but it was from the passenger side instead of in the driver’s seat.
When Lomax first got hurt, stepping awkwardly on a teammate’s foot in practice, team trainers told him he was looking at an eight-week recovery period.
“I told myself, I’m not gonna let this be an eight-week injury. I’m gonna work as hard as I can and try my best to come back,” he said. “It’s been three to four weeks and just for me to be walking and jogging right now is just a blessing. . . . I never felt I could be myself, but I made a lot of progress.”
Although he wasn’t on the court, Lomax said his experience coaching from the sideline was meaningful and “made me a better player and a better person.”
He was out of his walking boot and on a light practice schedule throughout the NIT run, mostly doing stationary shooting. There was never any real expectation he would play in the tournament.
Putting Lomax on the court for the closing seconds in the championship game was Hardaway’s nod to their long shared history, which began at Lester Middle School with the late coach Desmond Merriweather.
“A-Lo’s been through everything with me as a player, from sixth grade all the way up till now, and for him not to be able to play in this NIT to help his brothers, I know it was killing him on the inside,” Hardaway said. “Sometimes you can be forgotten when you’re not in the spotlight. But he was so pivotal and important to us because he kept the guys level-headed when they came to the bench.
“He kept a level head on practice days and in the hotel and he knew he couldn’t play, but he brought that leadership. So to be able to put him out there and think about Dez at the same time, it got a little emotional because we’ve come to win championships and the NIT is just a start.”
After the final buzzer, Lomax reveled in the glory with his teammates, cradling the NIT trophy and mugging for photos with the net draped around his neck.
“Gotta give it to Coach Penny, today was the first day we got to see him do his dance and he got the whole team hyped behind him,” he said.
Lomax said he is enjoying celebrating the win while also looking to next season, when he’ll be a senior with a chance to make up for lost time.
“Most definitely I will be working hard this summer to come back,” he said.
In 18 games with four starts, Lomax averaged 22.7 minutes, 6.3 points, 4.4 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 steals. He and the Tigers (20-8) finished the season as champions, a long ways from where they started.
“I just say we went from boys to men,” he said. “A lot of guys had to mature a lot. Coach wanted greatness for us and we had to realize he wasn’t gonna stop till he got the greatness out of us.”
Sunday’s championship was the peak of that greatness, and it was then that Lomax, the player who has been called the Tigers’ “heart and soul,” rejoined his teammates.
For anyone who has watched him play the past three years, there’s no doubt that Lomax — a Memphian by birth, a guy who customarily ended his news conferences with a gleeful, “GTG, baby!” — is a Tiger through and through.
So even though the Tigers accomplished a lot without him, when Lomax stepped onto the court, it felt like he made the them whole again.